Post: #26

mycleverid -

"1. I'm sorry, but Barcelona is littered with hookers, beggars and drug dealers. I know g wants to defend a place he favors, but it needs to be noted that the main tourist areas are nightmarish for street-level crime being pushed hard.

Las Ramblas are awful with them. I got to the point I simply stopped looking at black women because every single one was a West African hooker and they were downright physical. I had to threaten to hit several to get them off me."

It needs to be repeated: Avoid Las Ramblas.

I was there for a month last year and didn't get solicited by one prostitute.

Regarding Drug Dealers; I would rather have the option of buying drugs than not having the option.

"2. The entire beach area is rendered useless by the above. Traveling to Barcelona to enjoy the beach, especially the clubs there at night, is pointless."

Read my Data Sheets. I never go to the clubs in Barceloneta.

"3. If I do Barcelona again, and that's a big if, I would try to hew closer to g's advice."

My advice would be to follow it to a "T".

"4. Barcelona is a sweaty city even if it is 65 degrees out. Some areas are downright unlivable."

Summer is probably the worst time in Barcelona. Donde?

Here is how I see it, so you can make it better next time:

- You went during the worst time of year (the heat of Summer).

- You stayed in the worst place (Las Ramblas).

(I think this is what many Americans do, and is one of the reasons you get so many mixed reports on Barcelona.)

However, you still had a threesome with two Swedish girls.

Couldn't have been all bad, right?

Post: #27

@ G: For one, I give you major points for your loyalty to a city you believe in.

I'm not saying I gave Barcelona a fair shake at all.

What's tough about tourism is when a city just isn't the city you want it to be. I wanted Barcelona to be a cool beach vacation in Europe and it wasn't. The moment you land, you get to that first big window and you see the broad boulevards and the palm trees, and you get your hopes up.

It's clear that Barcelona is a lot like Paris.

In Paris, the entire trick is to get away Champs Elysees, away from Notre Dame, away from Moulin Rouge. (That said, the tourist areas in Paris are still vastly superior to Barcelona's tourist areas.) All the fun in Paris is about finding the real French in a nifty bars and just chatting and drinking and dancing til 4am.

I will make one point about the drug dealers. It's easy to say it's better for drugs to be available. Hell, I live next door to a drug dealer in the US. The distinction arises when the dealers won't let it go.

One of the big, big problems in Barcelona is that the illegals know that Europeans don't disengage easily. They know they can keep pressing a sale. I had several grab my arm and several put their arms over my shoulder.

Now, understand where I come from. I grew up rural, redneck. The complete disregard for personal space in Europe is very difficult for me. I don't like people getting close to me because I wasn't raised that way. A stranger who closes closer than three feet where I grew up is a stranger who is gonna be on his ass in the next second.

I had a hard enough time with this issue with regular, upstanding people. You add the drugs and hookers to it and compound that with the fact I repeatedly told them to "Fuck off", threatened to hit several and actually cocked my fist prepared to punch one. Frankly, no fuckin way. It's wrong that it should come to that.

It's one thing for drugs to be available. Fine. But no one has a right to be a dick about it and just relentlessly harass you.

As for getting laid, in fairness that happened because all three of us were having an existential crisis over how much we hated the place. Yeah, you game the good and the bad. But, I remember the one Swedish girl walking up the beach with me saying she was afraid of getting stuck with a needle from the sand.

Going to Barcelona and not being able to use the beach in the summer is equivalent to going to Aspen in the winter and not being able to ski. What's the point?

Post: #28

Having made Barcelona a regular spot for my previous summers I don't really recognize the picture you, mycleverid, is giving of the place at all.

Granted the place has been diluted by touristy gaudiness (get it? Barcelona, GAUDIness? hurr hurr) but from reading your reports you insist on staying and visiting all the parts of the city that are geared towards tourists.

I never had any problem with drug dealers or hookers in Barcelona, mostly because I don't make it my problem. Just put on the 1000-yard stare and walk past. If you add lip because people aren't accustomed to the way you were "raised" then you will see a lot more confrontations. You ignore them, literally, they don't exist as you walk down the street. Seriously, the first rule of travel is "when in Rome, do what the Romans do". Griping about the night life customs and Catalan girls sneak peeking you tells me that you are unwilling to move outside what you're familiar with. That's just not going to cut it when away from home.

Getting stung by a needle in the sand by the Barceloneta beach? That's BS. You're just antagonizing the place right now. If you spent any time at the beach you'd know that the public workers are raking that damn beach every morning.

Good job on pulling that Swedish girl though. That's what I did when I went to Barcelona and couldn't get to those Catalan women - hit up the tourists in vacation mode.

Post: #29

mycleverid -

"I'm not saying I gave Barcelona a fair shake at all. "

It is good you are open minded.

Like Vicious said, I had zero problems on my last trip with drug dealers or hookers in Barcelona. (Then again, I avoided Las Ramblas. In your defense, I did have some problems once in Barcelona, when I was 20 years old. Where did it happen? You guessed it, in the plaza off of Las Ramblas. And trust me, the city was a million times more sketchy back then.)

In fact, if you do Barcelona differently (ie the way I recommend) you won't get hassled at all. You bigger problem will be that sometimes you will be almost invisible.

Trust me, I know where you are coming from. But understand this, the sheets I throw down and the tips I bust shouldn't be taken lightly. Since I was 20 years old, I have probably spent 14 months of my life in Barcelona. So I know how to avoid that weesh things about it.

"Getting stung by a needle in the sand by the Barceloneta beach? That's BS. You're just antagonizing the place right now. If you spent any time at the beach you'd know that the public workers are raking that damn beach every morning. "

Agreed.

I think the issue you ran into with the "beach" in Barcelona is your perspective.

It seems like you where expecting a beautiful, tropical, paradise like beach.

Instead, you need to look at it like this: Barcelona is a major world class city on the sea.

As opposed to countless other world class cities that aren't on the sea, ie Madrid, Paris, London, Buenos Aires, Chicago, Rome, Milan, Berlin, Amsterdam, Oslo, Warsaw, São Paulo, Medellin, Cali, Bogota etc.

Let's put things in perspective: How is the beach in Dublin? How is the beach in Belfast? How is the beach in New York City?

Is there another world class, big city with a more beautiful beach? Warmer water? Sure there are, but the list is pretty light. (And do those cities have the art, architecture, food, nightlife etc of Barcelona? The list is even lighter. If anyone has an answer to that one, I have said before, that I am all ears.)

You need to look at the beach in Barcelona as Icing on the Cake, not the cake.

Sometimes it comes down to perspective.

All in all, I don't see how this can be a negative:



or this:

Post: #30

Quote:Just put on the 1000-yard stare and walk past.

This right here is actually why I hated Barcelona. Because this is what I had to do.

One of the reasons I'm so crazy about Paris is that you can go anywhere in Paris and smile at, walk over to and instantly hang out with anyone. Even Prague you could do it a bit, although the Czechs didn't seem to make a religion of going out of their way to say hi like the French did. An entire night of parting VIP in Paris can be manufactured out of thin air by just saying hello. That's literally the complete guide to Paris: say hi to anyone and just see where it leads you.

It sucked to lose that in Barcelona.

It's hard for me to switch into a positive mental frame once I've had a negative incident. Once I'm in full "don't fuck with me" mode, I don't pull out of it. And I'm fairly threatening looking person to start with. It takes me a lot to overcome both my physical appearance and my upbringing enough to just smile at a girl and bullshit and flow with it.

As for the beach, I never really got to enjoy it. I was rarely awake during the full daytime. I'm a night owl by nature. Right now it's 1 am and this is primetime for me normally (when I'm not hacking up phlegm). And partying in Paris and Prague only reinforced that behavior. Hell, my general view of nightlife in Europe is that you can't really judge a place until after 2 am.

I'll get over it. Some day I'll load up and come back to Barcelona with the full wardrobe and do it right during a cooler time of year when the real locals aren't all hiding somewhere else.

Post: #31

The last time I was in Barcelona was in 1975, I was 19 yo, I had a blast. I'm sure things have changed since then but is probably still a fun port.

Post: #32

Are you saying that there are no places in Paris where you will be bothered by drug dealers/hookers? I'm having a hard time taking that seriously.

Post: #33

(09-13-2011 01:16 AM)Vicious Wrote:  Are you saying that there are no places in Paris where you will be bothered by drug dealers/hookers? I'm having a hard time taking that seriously.

I was bothered by hookers once in Paris in 10 days. Drug dealers were non-existent.

For the record, it's not the presence of such people that bothers me. They're present everywhere in Europe. I get that.

What bothers me is the insanely hard sell they lay on in Barcelona. There's a distinction to be had from the couple streetwalkers in Prague who said "What, you no like me?" and the hookers in Barcelona grabbing me by the arm and not letting go even after I've threatened them.

Post: #34

Parts = a one night stand..